Pulis appointment a master stroke by Crystal Palace

After what seems like forever, Tony Pulis has finally taken charge of his first game at Crystal Palace. The struggling south London club spent most of November without a permanent manager while the powers that be searched for Ian Holloway’s replacement. Holloway left by mutual consent last month after admitting that he felt too worn out to do the job. The Eagles were five points adrift of safety at the time and had only managed one league win.

Pulis got off to a bad start in his new employment yesterday, losing 1-0 to Norwich at Carrow Road. The Canaries came into the game on a 7 match losing streak in the EPL, but found a narrow home victory courtesy of a Gary Hooper strike in the 30th minute.

Despite the less than ideal start, rest assured that Tony Pulis is still the right man for the job at Selhurst Park. While Ian Holloway has become skilled at leading his teams to promotion into the top flight (he has done it with Blackpool and Palace in recent years), the 50-year-old is not as gifted when it comes to survival. Under Holloway’s leadership, Blackpool went straight back down in their first season in the EPL, and with seven defeats in eight matches it looked like Crystal Palace’s season might be heading in the same direction.

While the decision to replace Holloway was seemingly his own and not that of the co-chairmen at Palace, the board should be grateful for this instigated change of direction. Pulis will bring a new purpose to the struggling London club, but don’t expect him to do it in the flamboyant way that Palace fans are accustomed to seeing from Holloway.

As most EPL fans are well aware, Pulis carries a fairly negative reputation in the Premier League. Some people believe he epitomises everything wrong with the British game, based on what the manager embodied at his former club, Stoke City.

Pulis created an ugly style of play at the Britannia Stadium, centred on rugged defending, towering strikers and the long-throw ability of Rory Delap (pictured)

Pulis created an ugly style of play at the Britannia Stadium. While other clubs focused on short, accurate passing and fast counter-attacking football, Pulis instead centred his team on rugged defending, towering strikers and the long-throw ability of Rory Delap.

But while Pulis’s style of play was not exactly pleasing to the eye and terrible for the neutral viewer, nobody can argue with his results. After the Welshman achieved promotion to the Premier League with the Potters in 2008, he pulled off five straight seasons of seemingly unremarkable mid-table finishes: 12th, 11th, 13th, 14th and 13th.

However, while Stoke’s seasons seemed unremarkable, in truth they were far from that. Comparing his résumé to those in similar situations paints a very clear picture of what Pulis was able to achieve.

From 2007 to 2009, eight teams were promoted to the Premier League: Sunderland, Birmingham City, Derby County, Stoke City, West Bromwich Albion, Hull City, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Burnley. Hull barely survived one season in the EPL, finishing in 17th before being relegated the season after. West Brom finished rock bottom of the table in their first season, not even surviving a year before going straight back down. Birmingham have been a notorious yo-yo club, suffering relegation from the EPL three times in a six-year stretch from 2006 to 2011.

Derby had one of the worst seasons ever seen in the Premier League after their promotion, winning only one game and plummeting straight back down to the Championship. Burnley also went straight back down in their first season in the top flight. Wolves managed to survive for two seasons, finishing 15th and 17th before finally succumbing to the drop.

Of the eight teams, only West Brom, Stoke and Sunderland have managed to stay in the top flight for at least four years after promotion. What that proves is something that is already common knowledge – stabilising a promoted team in the Premier League is, without a doubt, one of the toughest managerial challenges in football.

However, West Brom achieved what they did with five different managers and Sunderland did it with eight different men in the dugout. Tony Pulis did it all by himself, and that makes him the single most impressive relegation-survival-specialist in top flight English football. He has never been relegated as a manager, and in truth he has never really come close. That is why Crystal Palace want him.

Of course, Pulis’s style of play in recent years has not been for the purists. His key principles of direct and physical football, defensive accountability and efficiency at set pieces vary greatly from the positive, free-flowing attacking football that former boss Ian Holloway favours.

However, until we see how Pulis approaches his tactical set-up at Palace, we cannot know for sure that the Welshman will stick to the style of play that he has favoured in the past. The set-up at Stoke may well have been a manager simply applying another key principle – playing to the strengths of your team. The simplistic, powerful football that Stoke put on show for years at the Britannia may have been nothing more than Pulis utilising a particular style he felt continued to suit Stoke’s circumstances.

Big, powerful strikers like Cameron Jerome (pictured), who Pulis managed with Stoke, should allow the manager to incorporate the direct style of play that made him such a success at his former club

Chances are that Pulis will indeed revert to the same mentality he took at Stoke. With a lack of talent in the squad coupled with a number of powerful strikers (Cameron Jerome, Marouane Chamakh) that will allow Pulis to play a direct style when needed, it would seem to be the smart thing to do.

The fans at Selhurst Park probably won’t mind. They may not be excited by the product they see on the pitch, but they will certainly be happy with the results they see on the scoreboard. No fan would choose to play attractive football and get relegated over winning ugly and keeping those Premier League emblems on their replica shirts. Attractive football is a nice consolation prize, but there is nothing more satisfying than winning.

There is every chance that Palace will still go down. The squad is hardly bursting with talent, having scored a league-worst seven goals in 13 matches so far this season. Pulis isn’t going to drastically improve that column, but he should be able to do something about the 22 goals conceded, the third worst mark in the league.

While Pulis will look first and foremost to the existing squad to do that, don’t be surprised if there are a few new faces around Selhurst Park in January. Aside from Sam Allerdyce, no manager works better on a shoe-string budget than Pulis. He is extremely adept in the loan market and in acquiring bargain basement signings in the transfer window.

These are abilities that the fiscally challenged Crystal Palace board should be keen to exploit in the coming months. However, with Sporting Director Iain Moody in the mix, how the transfer policy will work out remains a murky area.

Moody, who created a reputation for astute transfer dealings with Cardiff City, was brought on board at Selhurst Park with the promise of oversight and complete responsibility for the club’s transfer dealings.

It is unclear at this point whether Pulis will be afforded the power to choose his targets, side-lining Moody in the area he was promised upon recruitment, or if the director will still have final control over identifying and signing players. Wherever the power ultimately resides, Palace will be hoping that the two men can make it work together quickly, with the January transfer window fast approaching.

Pulis has already hinted at changes forthcoming. The 55-year-old Welshman warned his players of that through the media, telling Sky Sports News, “There will be no discipline issues while I’m here, hopefully …If there are people you don’t think fit the group, then you try to get rid of them as quick as you can. Then it’s about getting people who understand what you want, what the group is about, and hopefully adding to what the group already has.”

Clearly, Pulis has stamped his authority on his club as early as possible. It is a positive start for a team that possibly lacked mental discipline with Holloway in charge. But with so many question marks hovering over Crystal Palace right now, turning things around is not going to be an easy task.

There is a long road ahead, but Palace fans should sit safe in the knowledge that they are much more likely to avoid the drop with a safe pair of hands like Tony Pulis at the helm.